Old Limits, New Attempts & Projects That Matter
The Projects Are Getting Serious September is starting to feel like project season. Will Bosi is back on Silence, Jakob Schubert is heading to France for DNA, and Babsi Zangerl has returned from injury with one of the hardest female multipitch ascents to date. Elsewhere, a 13 year old climbs 9a+, China pushes Speed Relay into new territory, and the climbing world is already looking toward what comes next.
Silence Is Getting Loud Again
Will Bosi’s first session back on Silence already produced overlapping halves of Crux 1 and another clean passage through the top, an encouraging start to the route’s latest serious repeat attempt. Babsi Zangerl and Jacopo Larcher complete the second and third free ascents of Déjà 8c+ after Zangerl’s long injury break, while this week’s other highlighted stories move from Alex Honnold’s relationship with risk to Yosemite’s wonderfully strange “Dope Lake” history and the loss of protection for the Boundary Waters.
Will Bosi Is Back on Silence and Moving Well
First session back on the 9c and he already had Crux 1 in two overlapping halves, then climbed the top of the route again. What he stresses is not the links but that it felt good, which is usually the part that comes last.
View post →
A Twenty Year Mining Ban Falls in a Single Day
The protection covering the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness was overturned in one day. It belongs to a wider rollback that has stripped safeguards from close to 90 million acres of public land in two years.
View post →
Alex Honnold on Reading Risk Rather Than Removing It
Fear and risk are not things Honnold has trained away, they are part of the climbing. What counts for him is judging both accurately and then knowing what to do with that judgement.
View post →
The Yosemite Plane Crash Finally Gets Its Documentary
In December 1976 a plane carrying more than 6,000 pounds of marijuana went into Lower Merced Pass Lake, and what followed became one of the strangest chapters in Yosemite history. Dash Pictures has now made the feature length version.
View post →
Babsi Zangerl Climbs at Her Limit Again on Déjà
After a long break for a back injury, being back on a route like this and climbing hard without pain is the part she keeps returning to. That she could share the ascent with Jacopo Larcher seems to matter just as much.
View post →From Thirteen Years Old to Twelve Metres Above the Sea
Leo Cea climbs his first 9a+ at just 13 with No Pain No Gain in Rodellar, while 17 year old Andrea Chelleris dispatches Waterworld 9a in a day at Osp. Shauna Coxsey makes the first female ascent of Britain’s hardest DWS, Olympiad 8b, Noé Looser takes a very different approach with a 5.14d free solo, and Adam Ondra revisits the history and limestone of Marmolada with Fish and a one day repeat of Egoland.
A Summer on the Grey Limestone of the Marmolada
The south face of the Marmolada carries more history than almost any wall in the Dolomites. This is a pass through it, Fish with Pietro Dal Pra and then Egoland, on rock that asks for patience before power.
View post →
Jakob Schubert Revisits a Sharma Classic in Mallorca
Face Your Fears, the 8b Chris Sharma opened in Canyamel, has long since become a classic, and Schubert plainly misses it. He also lets slip that a very different project is coming up.
View post →
Jimbobwe, a V12 That Came Out of an Evening Session
Jimmy Webb had brushed the line the day before. Woods went back to it after dinner with the rest of the camp, and the first ascent happened somewhere between the evening festivities and the walk out.
View post →
Seb Bouin Leaves Italy With a Near First Ascent of 9a
A short trip and a full card: La Sor-presa 9a as an almost first ascent, The Gift at 8b+, 120% onsighted at the same grade, and El Puma 9a left open outside Aosta for the next visit.
View post →
Déjà Sees Its Second and Third Free Ascents
Zangerl and Larcher free the 400 metre 8c+ on the Kirchlispitzen in the Rätikon, a route opened in 1992. Zangerl's ascent is possibly the hardest multipitch climbed by a woman to date.
View post →
Shauna Coxsey Takes the First Female Ascent of Olympiad
Britain's hardest deep water solo gets its sixth ascent and its first by a woman. Twelve metres of snaking, 45 degree wall that Neil Gresham first climbed in 2012, with knee bars doing as much work as fingers.
View post →
Andrea Chelleris Puts His First 9a Together in a Day
Straight from the Lead World Cup in Koper into the Big Cave at Osp, where the seventeen year old climbed Waterworld in a single day. It is his first route at the grade.
Read article →
Leo Cea Climbs 9a+ in Rodellar at Thirteen
No Pain No Gain was the stated goal for the year, and on 2 September the thirteen year old finished it well ahead of his own schedule. The year is not close to over.
Read article →
Noé Looser Free Solos 5.14d for a First Female Ascent
The line opens with a V14 boulder before it turns into bolted terrain, and she climbed the whole of it without a rope. It stands as the first female free solo at the grade.
Read article →Speed Gets Faster, While the Next Season Takes Shape
China sweeps the Speed Relay titles in Guiyang and sets a men’s world record, while Kevin Amon and Lukas Windischer take bronze for Austria with Amon clocking 4.89 seconds in the semifinal. Away from the stopwatch, Tomoa Narasaki is already building toward the Asian Games, Maximillian Milne moves from two weeks training with Jongwon Chon in Korea to Japan, and the Pro Climbing League is preparing to reveal what Season 2 will look like.
Two Weeks Training in Chon Jongwon's Gym
Maximillian Milne spent a fortnight at B.Bloc Songdo as Chon's student, and what he came back talking about was less the sessions themselves than the training culture built around them.
View post →
Tomoa Narasaki Builds Towards the Asian Games
A boulder camp at the DMG Mori Arena, one flash he was pleased with, and the kind of block that tells an athlete both what is working and what still needs attention before it counts.
View post →
The Pro Climbing League Sells Out Its First Arena
Tickets gone inside a day, strong numbers on the broadcast, and people travelling across the world for a first event. Whatever one makes of the format, the appetite for climbing as an arena sport is now a measured figure.
View post →
An Austrian Record and a Bronze in the Speed Relay
Kevin Amon and Lukas Windischer took third at the World Climbing Series in Guiyang, and Amon's semi final run of 4.89 seconds stands as an unofficial Austrian record.
View post →China Sweeps the Speed Relays and Breaks a World Record
Fan Jingyue and Zhang Shaoqin took the women's gold in Guiyang, then Ling Yongzhi and Zhao Yicheng broke the men's world record on the way to theirs. Both relay titles stayed at home.
Read article →New to climbing?
Start with our guides
Plain English explainers on gear, grades and skills, so every edition makes sense from the first read.
All guides →Small Choices on Long Days
Petzl keeps the focus on multipitch systems this week, from packing the BUG for a full day out to using the CONNECT ADJUST efficiently at the anchor. Ocún looks further down the chain with the Fury, using its 3 Force System to give a soft shoe enough support on small footholds without losing the sensitivity that makes it interesting in the first place
The Connect Adjust and the Case for One Good Lanyard
An adjustable lanyard earns its keep at the anchor, where nearly the right length and the right length are two very different days. The loop attachment also keeps the belay loop clear, which matters more than it sounds.
View post →
Packing the Bug for a Full Day on a Multipitch
A small pack forces the useful question of what actually comes along. On a long route the honest answer is usually everything essential and nothing beyond it, which is the whole argument for a pack this size.
View post →
The Ocún Fury and the Soft Shoe Compromise
Soft shoes trade support for sensitivity and everyone knows the cost. The Fury tries to dodge it with a tension system that puts support where the foot needs it, so small footholds still hold under a shoe you can feel through.
View post →What Happens Around the Climbing Matters Too
Jakob Schubert’s next objective is now clear: DNA 9c, with the possibility of becoming the first climber to repeat the grade and the first with two 9c routes. Meanwhile, nearly 400 routes on Kalymnos have been rebolted, Jimmy Chin’s Everest: The Other Side heads toward its October release, and the reduction of Bears Ears shows once again how quickly access, landscape and the places climbing depends on can change
Bosi and Ondra Turn Knee Bars Into a Short Film
Knee-nception is what the name promises: Will Bosi and Adam Ondra working through one knee bar after another in Trentino. Worth watching for the sequence alone, whatever you think of knee pads.
View post →
Bears Ears Loses Ninety One Percent of Its Area
The reduction took full effect on Friday. It sits inside the same rollback that has removed protections from close to 90 million acres of public land over two years, and November is the next point of leverage.
View post →
Everest: The Other Side Reaches Cinemas in October
Jimmy Chin's next film arrives in theatres and IMAX on 30 October, returning to Hilaree Nelson and Jim Morrison's ski descent on the far side of the mountain.
View post →
Jakob Schubert Goes to France for DNA
Six world titles, two Olympic medals and the most Lead World Cup wins of anyone, and now DNA, one of only five routes graded 9c. Success would make him the first climber to repeat the grade and the first with two of them.
View post →
Kalymnos Rebolts Almost Four Hundred Routes
A new arrangement between the local associations and the municipality has brought close to 400 routes up to current standards. The island now sits at roughly 5,000 routes in total.
Read article →
Lecco Gets Its First Climbing Festival in October
Three days of climbing, stories and mountain culture in town from 16 to 18 October. For a city with Lecco's history in the mountains, a first edition is arguably overdue.
Read article →Don't miss the next edition
You just read one weekly issue. Join free and get every edition, the ascents, comps and stories worth your time, straight to your inbox.
Free. Weekly. Unsubscribe anytime.